Fentanyl's Bad Enough. Unless Congress Acts, Drug Crisis Could Get Worse

Fentanyl is bad enough. But when you discover that the synthetic drugs you're injecting into your bloodstream are not only killing you, but causing your body to decay while you're still alive, you know you're in deep trouble.

Unfortunately, that's where reluctant addicts like Tracey McCann find themselves: unintentionally tied to a drug supply tainted by a novel substance of next-level toxicity. Tracey calls it "self-destruction at its finest." Medical professionals call it xylazine.

Xylazine was created as an animal sedative. It's extremely powerful and completely unfit for humans, as evidenced by the fact that it rots users' flesh. But when American drug traffickers discovered they could mix it with opioids to reduce production costs, increase psychoactive effects, and boost addictivity––and that they could acquire it easily online from veterinary medicine suppliers––they introduced it to the streets.